“A town of thirty thousand people?”
“There were some survivors.”
“They destroyed it with the people still—”
“More efficient. They could be reasonably sure their spy ceased his activities forthwith. The joke being, of course, that there was no spy.”
“Some joke,” River said.
Some punchline, he thought.
“That was one of Crane’s favourite stories,” Lamb said.
Amos Crane, long before River’s time, had been a service legend, for all the wrong reasons. Not so much poacher turned gamekeeper as fox turned henhouse warden.
“Crane liked to say you had the whole hall of mirrors wrapped up in that episode. They build a fort, then worry we’ll burn it down. So they burn it down first, to make sure we can’t.”
“And Popov’s supposed to be one of those survivors, yes?” River said. In his mind, he was seeing a perfect circle. “They destroy their own town, and years later make a bogeyman from the ashes to wreak vengeance on us.”
“Yeah, well,” Lamb said. “Like I say, it tickled Crane.”
“What happened to Crane anyway?”
“Some chick whacked him.”
Lesser talents would need a whole novel to tell you that much, River thought.
Lamb stood, gazed at the nearest tree as if in sudden awe of nature, lifted a heel from the ground and farted. “Sign of a good curry,” he said. “Sometimes they just bubble about inside you for ages.”
“I keep meaning to ask why you’ve never married,” River said.
They crossed the road. Lamb said, “Anyway. Scarecrow he might be. Bogeyman he was. But Dickie Bow’s still dead, and he’s the only one who ever claimed to set eyes on him.”
“You think Mr. B’s connected to the Popov legend?”
“Bow left a message on his mobile, more or less saying as much.”
River said, “Untraceable poison. Dying message.”
“Something you want to get off your chest?”
“Seems a bit … unlikely.”
“Tony Blair’s a peace envoy,” Lamb pointed out. “Compared to that, everything’s just business as usual.”
Speaking of which, it was time for River to get his wallet out again. They stopped at a stall serving coffee. “Flat white,” said River.
“Coffee,” said Lamb.
“Flat white?” said the stallholder.
“Pink and chubby. Since you ask.”
“He’ll have what I’m having,” said River.
Cups in hand, they walked on.
“I’m still not sure why we’re having this conversation.”
“I know you think I pull a lot of shit,” Lamb said. “But I never send a joe into the field without giving him all the info to hand.”
This took five seconds to sink in.
“The
“Can we skip the bit where you repeat what I’ve just said?”
River said, “Okay. It’s skipped. The field. Where?”
“Hope you’ve had your jabs,” said Lamb. “You’re going to Gloucestershire.”
It was late when Min left the office. Free overtime; a not unusual reward for passive-aggressive behaviour. At five he’d turned his mobile off, so when Louisa rang she’d have to leave a message, and at seven he turned it on again: nothing. He shook his head. He deserved this. Things had been going too well. He’d screwed up without noticing. But then, that’s what he was famous for. He was the one who’d managed to flush his career then go home for a good night’s sleep; find out about it the following morning. The one the others laughed about, secure in the knowledge that they might all have screwed up, but at least they’d known it at the time. Hadn’t needed the nation’s flagship news programme to point it out.
And it wasn’t talking about Shirley that had done the damage. That’s just what had broken the surface, like a shark’s fin. No: it was about the way they were living, dividing their relationship between two lousy addresses. It was about what they could expect from the future, sharing an office and the same lack of prospects. And always, of course, it was about his other life: the children, wife and house he’d left behind when his career went up the spout. He might have separated from them, but they were still there, placing demands on his time and emotions and income that Louisa would inevitably come to resent, if she didn’t already. You could see why she’d been upset. And why it was his fault, even though it wasn’t.
All of which one half of Min’s brain was explaining to him while the other half was guiding him over the road to a dreadful pub, where he spent ninety minutes drinking beer and morosely shredding a beermat. Another familiar feeling; a reminder of long solitary evenings endured in the aftermath of his life hitting the wall. At least he wouldn’t be hearing about this one on Radio 4 in the morning. “In a totally unsurprising development, Min Harper has screwed up his love life and can expect to be alone for the foreseeable. And now sport. Gary?”
It was here that Min decided he’d wallowed in enough self-pity.
